


Ink Stains and Heart Strings

by MeyerMansi



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Episode: s01e01-02 Juno Steel and the Case of the Murderous Mask, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, basically Juno has a weird soulmark and rex wears gloves all the time, because juno is a sad lady but he deserves to be loved, not in the fic rlly we just talk about ben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 20:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17793914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeyerMansi/pseuds/MeyerMansi
Summary: Juno is seventeen, and he's almost forgotten about his mark, somehow. It's just another old scar joining all the others he has. Meaningless and kinda sad, if you thought too hard about it, and not worth noticing, anymore.That is, until he goes asleep one night with the familiar name etched into his skin and wakes up with an inky black smear across the back of his hand.





	Ink Stains and Heart Strings

**Author's Note:**

> I spent Valentine's Day eating chocolate and editing this, which is the best thing I could've possibly done.

Like everyone else, Juno is born with a name on his hand.  Smooth letters in Martian script, deep, dark ink swirling and coalescing into a name:

_ Peter Nureyev. _

Peter Nureyev. That’s his soulmate. It’s a name that comes to the front of his mind almost as quickly as  _ Juno Steel _ , so ingrained into his being that it’s almost indistinguishable. He’s not sure he totally buys the whole soulmates schtick, but he can’t ignore that connection.

Soulmarks are weird like that. Their origin could be anything from divine intervention (unlikely) to large amounts of radiation altering people’s DNA (more likely). Juno’s never given it much thought; he tries to avoid thinking about the concept entirely, to be perfectly honest. It’s never worked out for him.

 

It wasn’t always like that. He remembers crouching on the bedroom floor with Benten, examining their marks intently. 

“Who do you think Peter is?” Ben asks. He’s leaning forward, entire body tipped towards the mark like that’ll make it reveal some hidden information. Juno shrugs noncommittally. 

“Dunno.” Ben’s eyes light up.

“I bet they’re a hero!” Juno snorts. There's an idea. 

“What makes you think my soulmate would be a hero?” 

“Because, Super Steel, you’re one too!” Juno rolls his eyes to hide his smile.

 

Benten has a name too, of course. He examines it with the same intensity he gives Juno’s, waxing poetic and prodding at the ink like he just can’t wait to uncover the secrets of the universe tying him to this person. Some people cover their marks, out of situation or courtesy or personal choice, but Ben never does, so Juno doesn’t, either. It’s generally considered rude to search someone’s hands for their soulmark, but naturally, they sneak glances anyway. Everyone does. There’s always that secret hope that your soulmate will be the barista or your neighbor with the corgi, and so people always look. There are entire agencies dedicated to matching soulmates. The PI industry’s number one source of income is finding soulmates, something Juno learns well in the coming years. Juno doesn't try as hard to find his soulmate as some. He does the cursory glance through Hyperion Databases in middle school to see if the name on his hand brings up any matches, but other than that he never seeks Peter Nureyev out. Soulmates are brought together by fate and shit, right? No use trying to speed that process up. By the time it becomes something that would truly affect his life, Juno has bigger concerns. 

 

Juno is seventeen, and he's almost forgotten about his mark, somehow. It's just another old scar joining all the others he has. Meaningless and kinda sad, if you thought too hard about it, and not worth noticing, anymore. 

 

That is, until he goes asleep one night with the familiar name etched into his skin and wakes up with an inky black smear across the back of his hand. 

 

"Benzaiten." He says, immediately. His brother grumbles a little, but something in Juno's tone makes him get up and pad across the room. Benten inhales sharply and reaches for Juno’s hand, stopping just short of the mess. 

"Juno, what--"

"I don't know. I don't..."

"Should I get Mom?'

"Like hell." Juno wonders if he's dying. He wonders if that would be so bad. Ben frowns like he knows what Juno's thinking and Juno pulls the hand free of his grasp. Ben sighs and squeezes Juno’s shoulder. A thousand words go unspoken in that gesture. 

"Let me know if it changes again." It doesn't. 

When Sarah Steel finally notices her son's hand she certainly doesn't take him to the doctor, and her comments are predictably horrible. 

 

He doesn't actually get it checked out until he joins the HCPD. Rita catches him without the gloves he always wears, the ones he pretends are for keeping fingerprints off his screens. He’s reached a begrudging acceptance of her at this point, enough that it only takes several hours of consistent annoyance before he caves. 

 

The expert is a narrow-faced man with a veritable parade of diplomas on the wall behind his expensive leather chair. He takes a look at Juno’s hand and his entire face goes pale. Off to a great start.

"It's strange," he says, scribbling furiously.  "because you see, soulmarks are perfectly capable of change. If your soulmate simply changed their name, your mark should have changed accordingly. It's possible something happened during that process, a kind of genetic glitch, but..."  _ But probably not _ . Juno's mark isn't a half-transformed moniker or letters that have bled out strangely. It's a smear, like someone wrote that damn name in wet ink and then wiped like they were trying to make it disappear from existence. The expert is still speaking.

"Of course, the most common change the marks undergo is, sadly, after the death of one’s soulmate." Ah. Juno doesn't need this one explained. He’s seen how the mark fades, going greyish-blue instead. He’s seen it because the name on Diamond's hand isn't his, but it's fine because that person is gone, right? It has to be. He’s seen it because last year someone stood on the steps to his childhood home with shaking hands, wearing   _ Benzaiten Steel _ in faded ink. They were a lot like Benten thought they’d be. They’d lived in Hyperion City their entire life.

 

Juno cuts through the man’s words and his own thoughts. 

"So, they're probably not dead, and they probably didn't change their name, so basically you have no idea." The expert seems affronted, but Juno can see the accuracy of his conclusion in the man’s carefully practiced smile. 

"Well, Mr. Steel, there's just so many possibilities. Not all terrible, either. Perhaps if you gave us the name, we could look into it? These sort of mutations are generally a case-by-case affair.”

"I don't remember the name," Juno speaks quickly. “It’s been too long.”  He doesn't know why he lies, but he feels a rush of certainty as he does. Like hell he’s telling this guy anything. The name itself feels like the last shred of whoever Juno's soulmate was. Who knows what’s left of them besides those letters buried in Juno’s psyche. He’s not going to give up something that precious for a chance at finding someone that probably doesn’t exist.

“Thanks for the help, Doc.” he says, and does his best to mean it. The man sputters a little as Juno gets up, abruptly cutting their meeting short. But he lets Juno leave, lets him walk farther and farther away until the clinical scent has been washed away by the grimy neon of Hyperion City.  
  


* * *

 

 

Despite his best efforts, Juno deals with soulmates on a near-weekly basis. So sue him, it’s a damn profitable business. Clients with too much money and not enough love in their lives pay him outrageous sums for their chance at happiness. It’s sort of good work, anyway. Just because Juno’s soulmate is...well, he doesn’t know, but just because he no longer has a chance with them doesn’t mean he should stand in the way of anyone else’s shot at eternal joy or whatever. 

 

Sometimes, the soulmate business finds him even in the middle of the least romantic, goriest cases, because that’s just how his life has been playing out. A messy, morbid rom-com that dropped the punchline somewhere and never bothered to pick it back up. Regardless, it’s pretty damn hard to avoid the concept of soulmates around the Kanagawas. It’s just the kind of schmoopy, drama-filled bullshit that fuels their ratings. Cass keeps her hands wrapped, and Cecil wears elbow-length sparkly gloves. Millions will tune in when they decide to capitalize on the secret identities of their soulmates.

Min Kanagawa doesn’t wear gloves, but both her hands are neatly blotted with foundation, covering her mark entirely. She always smiles for the camera and says she “finds the font tacky” whatever that means. Unless her soulmark happens to be written in comic sans, Juno’s guess is that the name on her hand is not  _ Croesus Kanagawa. _

Not that it matters now, because Croesus is beyond soulmarks--or anything at all, for that matter. Juno shudders and tries not to think about the blood-stained room. 

 

Rex Glass grips his arm as he finishes stitching, and Juno is jolted back to the present. Thankfully, his arm is no longer gushing, which means Juno can do his damn job, as much as the prospect is currently filling him with dread. Agent Glass’s hand relaxes, and Juno follows the elegant line of it up to the man’s face. Rex Glass--the hell is up with this guy? At this point, Juno is 60-70% sure this man is lying to him; he’s lying about who he is, or what he wants, or why he keeps giving Juno looks like  _ that _ . But...even knowing this, knowing the guy is playing him even if he’s not quite sure how, Juno finds himself getting pulled in. Pulled like a riptide clawing at his ankles and dragging him under, sure, but it’s a pull all the same. There’s just something about Rex Glass that’s  _ right  _ to Juno Steel. What worries him is that there’s plenty  _ wrong,  _ too.

 

They can’t all be winners, but this case sucks in particular. Having your former friend hold you at gunpoint is never a great feeling (and Juno would know, it wouldn’t be the first time). Everything about it--Cas, the mask, Min, hell, even _Cecil_ \--it’s all wrapped up neatly but the whole situation is so _wrong_ and it burns hot in his chest like failure. Rex seems less miserable. He acknowledges the situation and Juno’s state, but in everything else, he’s absurdly blasé. Juno wants to explore that thought, but he forgets it when Rex sidles up close and smiles. His breath draws across “You… wouldn’t want to show me someplace warmer, would you?” and Juno decides that he very much does. Soulmates and starcrossing are all well and good, but Rex is in front of Juno, smiling like he knows what Juno is thinking and agrees wholeheartedly. They make their way upstairs, and Juno smiles and frowns and pours a drink and dodges the question he doesn’t want to face the answers to just yet. Then, 

“Come here.” 

 

Such a simple phrase. It reduces and brushes aside their situation to the point that it’s easy, so  _ damn easy _ to just let himself slump into Rex’s arms, to pretend like this isn’t going to go downhill as soon as Rex incriminates himself. 

It doesn’t help that the kiss is fucking magical. It’s the sort of thing they describe in Rita’s novels, all fluttery feeling and soft lips and stopped time. His eyes close of their own accord when Rex gets a handful of his coat and pulls him in, but they flutter jerkily open as he feels a strange spike in his hand. It’s not strictly painful, but it’s not exactly a pleasant feeling either. It’s as if he’s looking up and down at the same time, and the vertigo almost makes him break the kiss. It’s the stupid stitches, probably. He just  _ had  _ to go up against Cecil, all for the man that was about to--yep--there it was. The slightest brush of fingers against his pocket, disguised as Rex deepening the kiss a bit, and Juno feels his keys leave his pocket like a judge’s sentence. He breaks off and looks into Rex’s eyes. He still has the sunglasses on, and Juno sees his own eyes reflected in them, warm and steady. He’s not going to get anything trying to read the other’s expression. So he doesn’t. Instead, he sighs, one hand at the lapel of Glass’s coat, the other slipping behind him to land on a circlet of metal.

“Rex…” he doesn’t have to put as much effort into the breathy act as he’d like to claim.

“Juno.”

“Has anyone ever told you…” he moves as quickly as he can, arm snapping forward like the crack of a laser pistol.“That you’re under arrest?” The handcuffs click with a sense of finality, and Juno steps back, putting as much distance between himself and the man that calls himself Rex Glass as he can while preventing escape. Rex laughs, full of quips as per usual, but he is well and truly caught. Juno tells him as much and he smiles again, sharp and full of secrets. It’s frustrating beyond belief. 

“ But I’m afraid I don’t tell anyone my name. It would take someone very special for me to tell it now.” Juno’s sneers and his hand twinges again, causing the expression to slip a little. He feels extra bitter about the spikes now. They didn’t land anywhere  _ near  _ his hand, for fuck's sake. He brushes it off and wills Rex to stop smirking. He doesn’t, naturally. Instead, he gives Juno the most laughable proposition he’s ever heard, presented like a genuine option. It’s alluring in the way that Juno has always found those kinds of stories. But that’s what it is, a story. Juno can’t even comprehend the idea of it, not like this. So instead he ignores it and waits for the police like a good citizen. Not that Juno’s ever been one of those. The cops come and go, “Rex” throws one last glance over his shoulder,  and that fox’s smile clouds Juno’s mind over the same way that cologne clouds his senses. Juno rubs at his temples and slumps with the weight of it all. He grabs another drink, soon to be one of many, and tries his best to arrange the events of the night in a way that makes sense. As a PI, his best is usually pretty damn good, but he’s not trying to make sense of the mask, or Cass’s involvement or Min’s. No, he’s trying to string together an entirely different set of events: the kiss, the more-and-more insistent ache along the back of his hand, and the little piece of paper he finds wedged behind the cushions. He unfolds the paper and everything begins to click. Puzzle pieces slot in one after another and he is  _ not  _ happy with the picture that they’re forming. His eyes dart from line to line. The message is sweet and snarky and something else--a genuine glimpse of the person pretending to be Rex Glass. He reaches the final line, swears and almost drops the letter. The second he stops fumbling for it, he frantically switches hands and tears off his worn, leather glove.  Good for hiding fingerprints and a hell of a lot else. 

 

Juno stares at his hand for a long moment. Then at the letter. Then at his hand. He makes a noise of disbelief, a clunky laugh-sob that tears it’s way up his throat without him ever being aware of it. Then he takes his hand and the letter and holds them side-by-side, staring and staring.

 

The last of his ink-smear soulmark curls back into place, as if it had never left. It’s accompanied by a final stab of the vertigo he’s been feeling since he first kissed…no way. No way. 

There, clear as day lays a name. The one Juno stared at for the first seventeen years of his life. And there, on the paper, lays the same name, identical down to the over-flourished scrawl it’s written in:

_ Your Better Half, _

_ Peter Nureyev _

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ayyyy! I had fun writing this, let me know if you'd be interested in a continuation, maybe? Don't forget to leave a comment and kudos if you enjoyed! :^)


End file.
